Back to that crazy ITT in Cinque Terre

As you may have seen on my Tweets, I had been given the chance to drive the follow car for Liquigas' Gorazd Štangelj. How's that for a name? First, since the guys at Liquigas butcher his name, I went to Wikipedia to analyze a little...

A caron ( ˇ ) or háček (pronounced [ˈhɑːt͡ʃɛk] in English, [ˈɦaːt͡ʃɛk] in Czech), also known as a wedge, inverted circumflex, inverted hat, is a diacritic placed over certain letters to indicate present or historical palatalization, iotation, or postalveolar pronunciation in the orthography of some Baltic, Slavic, Finno-Lappic, and other languages. Š/š (pronounced [ʃ] — similar to 'sh' in she.

Huh?

So after all of that Greek (actually Slovenian), Gorazd told me how to properly pronounce his name (I like to be as accurate as possible). It's "Shtongel" with a soft 'g' like 'go' and an 'o' like in 'on'. There you have it... back to the race.

Mrs. Masini and our 'children' were present as well and I can guarantee that I was the only follow car with two dogs as co-pilots.

There was some confusion from the start, as the Italians have their own ideas about directions and start areas. However, we arrived with about five minutes to spare...

And we were off...!

The course was as bad as everyone else has said. Up and down the whole way. The co-pilots got just a little bit of motion sickness and Gorazd dropped me on many of the descending hairpins. The old VW Sharan minivan doesn't quite handle like a team car, especially with me at the wheel and two complaining wiener dogs to make sick. The crowds were awesome as usual, filling the road at the top of the climbs, and also scattering themselves out into some of the more remote spots.

Gorazd finished 123rd out of 186, 10:52 behind stage winner and new maglia rosa Denis Menchov.

After the finish, it became apparent why logistically it was the right choice to follow, as there was literally one road going anywhere near there! I continued past all the other team cars and parked around the curved cliff road 1km away... and I arrived early. Others had to continue even further and walk. In the end, it wasn't too bad. It was a spectacular place for a stage. If you're ever near Genoa or La Spezia or even Pisa, then Cinque Terre is worth a trip for the hiking and the sights. This is the fourth time I've been there, but the first with a bike race.

After the race, I said good bye to my guests from the US, Tim and Caterina. They had a difficult week ahead of them, staying in Corniglia (one of the Cinque Terre, or 'five lands') to enjoy the view. Of course, we didn't have it too bad either, heading off to Florence for the weekend! I studied Italian there many moons ago and was finally able to eat tortellini again at the Palle d'Oro. The owner still remembers me as the American who ate the same thing three times a week for lunch back in 1992!

Oh yeah, Daisy made more friends and Tucker enjoyed the gum and food left on the old streets of Florence.

Pre-Giro Bike Launch

Last week I stayed at CastelBrando in Cison di Valmarino for the launch of the new SuperSix. The place was fantastic, as was the riding. Journalists from all over the world were there to test the bike. Some articles are already showing up. Here are a few...

Cyclingnews.com
Bicycling.com
Road Bike Action
Velo News

Some of my extra duties involved our guest riders, Jacopo Guarnieri and Roman Kreuziger fresh off his Tour of Romandie win, and some Cannondale Giro extras like some of the special bikes and the pink jerseys from my personal stash. Here are a couple of articles about those events... Seems the American guys liked the access to those things a bit more!

Road Bike Action

We rode some of the roads that featured in the Giro's stage 3 to Valdobbiadene. My Giro has been great so far. We took the journos to the Lido di Venezia for the TTT. I didn't take too many photos, but trust that a good time was had. Oh yeah, we managed to eat great Italian food for the duration!

Here's me at the end of our ride... note the looming clouds and our castle on the hill behind. Yeah, work sucks!

Ramping Up!

Skies are full of pollen, and l'Etape du Tour is coming sooner than I realize. It's time to get more distance and climbing in the legs, so I took two days off and set out to do just that. Thursday was four and a half hours with 1500m climbing. Friday was short to rest a bit, and Saturday was another four and a half hours, 100km and 1300m - and windy. Granted, not terribly long or fast, but I'm starting to feel good. I was finally able to navigate to the Passwang, which isn't incredibly difficult, but is close to home and has a few twists in it.

Both rides here...


The view from the top of the Passwang. It was getting pretty late by this time, luckily the road home was downhill... a little!




Notice the vertical jump when I forgot to restart the Edge 705! Also the Biel Benken wall with 12% at the end of the ride.


Even with a Garmin, it is faster to navigate with the tried-and-true tape on the top tube!

Oude Kwaremont

Just a quick one to catch up a bit on postings and races, etc. I got the chance to ride with Chris Milliman in Belgium during the classics trip that spanned Ghent-Wevelgem through Paris-Roubaix. Milliman's a big guy and in far better shape than I. He also takes great cycling photographs. Were it not for the fact that he shot this with my crappy little SD400, here's a 'great' shot of me on the Oude Kwaremont (Tour of Flanders), which we did a couple of times. I now know for a fact that I'm not exactly built for cobblestones!

The Saturday morning before Roubaix was incredible. We saw more Quick Step jerseys than I care to see in one place. There was group after group of Belgian locals out on the famous roads of the Ronde. Right after our ride, we high tailed it down to Compiegne to get our credentials and a meeting with the Mavic guys.

As for Roubaix, Quinziato put in a great effort, but had a little crisis late in the race. Still, 9th place means he's improving in this race and SHOULD be on lists for the future (if only he came from an english-speaking country! More about that later!).

We were able to get to four different points during the race. I passed a grand total of four waterbottles, one dropped by Quinzia. No wheel changes though - my chance at mechanical fame will have to wait another year!

Am I Hip Enough to Wear This?

Look what arrived in the mail this morning... The Rapha Bernard Hinault Legend t-shirt. I usually don't consider myself to be retro or cool enough to buy cycling clothes/gear that's not either lime green or plastered with the logos of our sponsored team, but I HAD to get this. La Vie Claire was the coolest team of all time (at least when I first got into the sport). Just put this one down to nostalgia as I approach 40 and try to recapture long-lost youth.

The answer? No, I'm not hip enough. Hipsters rejoice! I also won't be building my old Tommasini into a fixie any time soon!

Ghent-Wevelgem

I had the eleventh-best seat in the house for Wednesday's race (Team Liquigas was car number 11). It started out windy and wet, and it stayed that way for the whole race. The wind blew the group to pieces just 10km into the race. Strong teams like Quick Step totally missed out (ok, Boonen was in the lead group but once he flatted, it was game over for the Belgian powerhouse). Then, it was crash after crash from the front group. Cervelo at one point had almost their whole team in the break. Rabo had 4. Race radio said we had only two! Once we got permission to pass group 2, we found a nice surprise... Fischer had made the break as well! From there, Liquigas poured on the pressure as Alexandre Kuchynski attacked on the second pass of the Kemmelberg. He got away and was soon joined by eventual winner Edvald Boasson Hagen. Once he joined, we knew we were racing for second. Really, Kuchy did great, but the young High Road rider just has a stronger kick. It was nervous in the car for a bit, but what a way to watch a race!

My view...

My photographer's view...

It's Almost Here!

I was fourteen years old, and had just gotten into this thing called bike racing. I had not yet adopted my 'Dave Stoller' alter ego. Not yet a word of Italian... but we had Paris-Roubaix on CBS. This is how I became a fan of Greg Lemond. Over-produced, edited, schmaltzy, but it was these rare glimpses of pro cycling that gave me the bug. It's also how I built up an appreciation for this incredible race...

Somehow, I now have the luck to 'work' this race for the fourth time! I'll remember to pinch myself from the bleachers in Roubaix to confirm that it's real!

New Life for an Old Friend

Some bikes tend to stay with you forever. This Silk Path 500 was built with help from an old friend, frame builder extraordinaire Terry Osell from Minneapolis. I laced the wheels up myself in 1997 if I remember correctly. It was my first urban/commuter/city bike and I got it for a song and replaced some parts with some orphaned mtb items. Strangely enough, it was rarely used and sat patiently to be called into service heavily after our move to Basel in 2005.

Since then, it has been my daily commuter, reliably getting me to and from work as quickly as possible. She began to lose spokes in the back lately and after a few attempts at replacing them, a rebuild was necessary. So there she sat yesterday in the stand, sans rear wheel, and I decided to upgrade parts yet again. When you have a spare parts box full of interesting things, team only parts, one-time anodized CODA 900 cranks, etc... you start to get ideas to put new life into an old bike.

After hours of messing about, I finally found all the appropriate parts, correct-length axle, bearings and the rest. I fitted it about ten times before getting the right combination that allowed the arm to clear the seat stays, the chain guide to pass the chain and the correct chainline that the Nexus 7 will expect. I also changed tires, seatpost, lockout knob and fork boot. In all, I saved 855 grams - get this - for free! I can't wait to get the fresh rear wheel back and rock this thing around town this summer!

I'll get a new alloy tubular rack and some new fenders next week as well.

Carbon riser bars, Ergon grips, and the HeadShok "holee" stem from way back when.

Ever seen a CODA 900 crank anodized in crap? Here it is! Some custom hammering and the chain guard continues to function as it likes.

It's funny how a bike built from odd parts can be more fun to ride than your (or my) latest 14.5 pound road bike built from the latest and greatest. Plus, you can't leave that road bike leaning outside of the local bar without losing your desire for a beer!

La Primavera

So I've been far more active on Twitter lately, so here goes with a quick post-MSR update. I went down to Italy with the dogs for a bit of pre-race errands on Thursday and Friday. Even though MSR is probably my favorite race (along with P-R), I decided that I'd far rather watch it live on tv than make the trip to San Remo. Plus, with the dogs, even though they don't mind catching a big race now and then, it's far easier!

So I headed to Venice and spent Friday morning at the team warehouse doing some catchup with Gianfranco. After that, we busted tail for Milan. I had some frames that I needed Ivan to sign... some lucky chaps will be the recipients of these!

Then, I spent some time with my friends from Mavic, as well as the mechanics. As usual, Arco and the team got the bikes perfect before the race. Arco is so fast - he bends spokes! Don't believe me, check it out... thanks to the fast iPhone camera!

I spent some time with the big favorite for this weekend, Bennati. This was his first San Remo where he wasn't injured or working for a team leader, and he was quite excited. He is in great form right now and was certain that he'd make it with the lead group into San Remo - and he was right. Unfortunately, luck wasn't on his side. I think it was the final turn that found him out of position and unable to respond to Haussler's attack - sixth. Anyway, he also had a new paintjob for the race... check it out.

So now it's off to Belgium and the rest of the classics!

ToC Wrap Up

So Cali was decent for us. No big wins but two VERY close calls by Nibali.

My main responsibility was to interpret the flurry of questions being thrown at me, as most of the guys don't speak english. I also sat up on stage with Ivan at the pre-race press conference. It was a bit strange sharing the mic with Lance, Levi, George and Christian. Luckily, once people realized that he'd need interpreter, they lost interest and refocused on Lance. Then the fireworks came with Kimmage's question!

After that, it was to the start and finish of each stage. I also had Andrea Noe as a guest rider for some test rides and retailer rides. That involved some early morning drives and rides as well. We had a good time and some good riding. Rides and shop visits/autograph sessions were arranged with Mike's Bikes in Sacramento, Herb Bauer's in Clovis, and Swami's in San Diego. Here is a photo from the Clovis ride, taken near Millerton Lake.


We also participated in a climbing camp set up by our Philly retailer, Cadence Cycles. It was a great ride in and around the Agora hills. There were about 40 of us total and the instruction by Brian Walton was great. Andrea was a champ, joking around and trying his best to understand english!

The Solvang TT was a let down. Ivan hit his knee and I immediately went into 'take care of Ivan' mode. I did a press statement with him before rushing him off to Santa Monica for an MRI and lunch followed by a long drive down to San Diego. The next morning was an early flight home for him. That was the second of three 5:00 am morning trips to the airport!

Sunday was another early morning followed by my driving of team car #2, after all my statements that I wouldn't do it again! I picked up RoRo, a Facebook friend who took plenty of photos including this one. The crowds were fantastic and the tension high as Nibali went after the stage win. It wasn't to be, however, and we had to settle for second.

I'm now finally getting ready to fly home. Milan, actually. From there, I'll drive down to Massa Marittima for the CFR team camp. More to come from there!

Big thanks also to Richard and Sharon from Speedplay for the hospitality and restaurant tips!